Sheep
by Whisper Gypsy
Summary: The Order defeated Lord Voldemort, but lost the War. The death eaters now run Wizarding Britain and have imprisoned all the muggleborns in labor camps. Hermione is one such prisoner, who has survived all of her friends to endure this torture. Oneshot.


A/N: I recommend you listen to Lady GaGa's "Hair" while reading, especially since it was a large point in inspiring this fic. My level of angst had increased exponentially, even life isn't terrible. Apparently, my muse only requires blah weeks with occasional crappy days to manipulate poor fictional characters. On a happier note, I will be going on vacation soon, but it shouldn't affect my writing/updating negatively. Rather, expect more from me then, since my time will be completely split between my fics, and the lovely Virginia Beach. Reviews appreciated!

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine, and this scenario is more like Hitler's concentration camps than anything my mind can claim credit for on its own. So, also, not mine.

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Sheep

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I shuffled away slowly, numb.

It had been a part of me, just like books and rules, like spats with Ron and scolding the twins. It was me, and they took it away, cut it off and burned it. It had smelled sour as it burned, folding in on itself and jerking away from the heat as though the fire had hurt it. I cringed as I watched, and cried.

But that was ages ago. Now it was a routine, once a month walk into the large white building and have your hair—however much had grown in—sheared down to dark stubble.

We were all cold and some lucky few had made scarves or bandanas out of rags to cover their unprotected heads, but I had refused to wear one myself. Instead I had left my head bare and my chin up. And then they began making the others like me.

The first time it happened, they made me watch. She screamed and cried out for help, for mercy, for God, for Mummy. They never stopped.

After I had thrown up over the torturer's expensive dress eater robes, I wasn't allowed close enough to the torture to feel the girls' sweat, tears, and pain, but I still had to hear it. They locked me in an isolated room, with no food and little water, for the entire week it took for them to carve 'mudblood' into every girl's arm. Now we all matched—the scum of the earth.

I don't cry anymore—I stopped crying in that room.

We lost everything after the Battle of Hogwarts. Voldemort had died, but his death eaters were too numerous to defeat. After they completely overturned any opposition in the Ministry, a totalitarian dominion began. At first muggleborns were just disappearing and no one heard from them again. Muggles were slaughtered left and right, but there was no pattern to track the attacks with.

And then Fenrir had killed Harry.

Chaos is too pretty a word to describe the pure manic terror that filled every soul as they fled from slaughter. Pureblood were safe, unless they sheltered muggleborns. Like the Weasley's sheltered me.

I will never forget the sight of Molly surrounded by her dead and bleeding family as she looked at me and whispered, "Stay strong, Hermione."

And then they killed her, too.

But that was a whole lifetime ago.

I don't feel anything most days, except rage, simmering forever under the surface, pooling like magma and waiting for the perfect pressure to erupt and wipe out the whole murdering lot of them.

Patience. A virtue. A skill. A weapon.

The brightest witch of her age might be fun to torture and manipulate, but it was decidedly foolish to leave me alive long enough to exact my revenge.

My fingers brushed through the stubble on my head, and my heart ached a little. I felt like I lost a piece of myself each time they sheared me; the bushy-haired know-it-all belittled to Mudblood sheep.

Some of the death eaters "baa"-ed at us as we were sheared, but most just went through the motions, bored and possessing little desire to come into contact with any of us at all. It was the half-bloods they made have actual contact with us anyway, not wanting to sully their precious purity.

I had spat on a pureblood once, and had my nose, three ribs, and my whole right hand broken for my trouble. It was worth it.

I hate the feelings of hopelessness which overwhelm me each time I find a niggling plan to save myself or anyone, but I am not so hopeless when I plan to wipe out the entirety of Wizarding Britain. Not the most moral plan, but the only one with half a shot in hell of working.

My plan isn't very grand, and is in fact highly simple. There is a large death chamber where they bring the sick or very weak among us. They use us as beasts of burden, like cattle, and when we are no longer able to serve those needs, we are incinerated. What they fail to realize was that the engineer who designed the death chamber was a half-blood who didn't mind getting his hands dirty. They christened the death chamber with its maker so no one else could destroy it, but they forget that their prisoners have so much in common with that maker.

We know basic chemistry and physics. We are muggleborn, not wizardborn, and therefore understand that if the pressure increases beyond the point the walls are magically enhanced to, all the oxygen in the tanks one building over would turn the death chamber into a bomb which would obliterate England from the earth and wash her into the sea.

Foolish is letting a witch with an admittedly hungry mind, who has clearly read every book available to her be the one responsible for cleaning the soot from the room at the end of each euthanization. I know they thought it would crueler for me that way, but having a full understanding of the chamber and how to operate it makes it worth it.

I stopped eating three weeks ago. My strength is practically nonexistent. I am grey and skeletal, but my eyes sparkle with joy and hope. It will be soon.

I was summoned into the main yard with thirty-odd other muggleborns. We are all inspected and ten of us—myself included—are sent into the chamber.

I smile.

The nine who are my chosen companions nod weakly at me, hopeful that my plan—for I must have one to be so joyful—will save us all. I am, after all, the remaining arm of the Golden Trio.

We are locked in the metal chamber and I instantly move into the third corner of the pentagonal room. I slide the lossest screws out of their sockets and pull the wall open just a hair. I pull my magic directly from my core, where it has been conserving itself and wandlessly I lower the barriers around the death chamber.

I collapsed to the ground, weary and spent. The other girls rush to me, afraid I have failed, and are holding me as I hear the hissing of the flames igniting.

I smile and close my chocolate eyes, seeing my family all waving me towards a great castle near a black lake and a large wood below some mountains.

Boom.

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I would love it if you took the time to review after reading, since it helps me to know there are people reading and enjoying—or hating—my work. It keeps more stories coming, and more updates for the stories already posted.

Much love, Gypsy


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